One Hundred Years of Solitude

One of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize-winning career. The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.

When We Were Orphans

Christopher Banks, an English boy born in early-20th-century Shanghai, is orphaned at age nine when both his mother and father disappear under suspicious circumstances. He grows up to become a renowned detective, and more than 20 years later, returns to Shanghai to solve the mystery of the disappearances.

Crime and Punishment (Recorded Books Edition)

Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is universally regarded as one of literature's finest achievements, as the great Russian novelist explores the inner workings of a troubled intellectual. Raskolnikov, a nihilistic young man in the midst of a spiritual crisis, makes the fateful decision to murder a cruel pawnbroker, justifying his actions by relying on science and reason, and creating his own morality system. Dehumanized yet sympathetic, exhausted yet hopeful, Raskolnikov represents the best and worst elements of modern intellectualism. The aftermath of his crime and Petrovich's murder investigation result in an utterly compelling, truly unforgettable cat-and-mouse game. This stunning dramatization of Dostoevsky's magnum opus brings the slums of St. Petersburg and the demons of Raskolnikov's tortured mind vividly to life.

Ulysses

Ulysses is regarded by many as the single most important novel of the 20th century. It tells the story of one day in Dublin, June 16th 1904, largely through the eyes of Stephen Dedalus (Joyce's alter ego from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) and Leopold Bloom, an advertising salesman. Both begin a normal day, and both set off on a journey around the streets of Dublin, which eventually brings them into contact with one another.

A Pale View of Hills

The story of Etsuko, a Japanese woman now living alone in England, dwelling on the recent suicide of her daughter. In a story where past and present confuse, she relives scenes of Japan's devastation in the wake of World War II.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

It's 1939, in New York City. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat: smuggling himself out of Hitler's Prague. He's looking to make big money, fast, so that he can bring his family to freedom. His cousin, Brooklyn's own Sammy Clay, is looking for a partner in creating the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book. Inspired by their own fantasies, fears, and dreams, they create the Escapist.

Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy's classic story of doomed love is one of the most admired novels in world literature. Generations of readers have been enthralled by his magnificent heroine, the unhappily married Anna Karenina, and her tragic affair with dashing Count Vronsky.

A Confederacy of Dunces

The hero of John Kennedy Toole's incomparable, Pulitzer Prize-winning comic classic is one Ignatius J. Reilly, "huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gargantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter". His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures.

Stoner

William Stoner is born at the end of the 19th century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar's life, far different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments.

Shantaram: A Novel

Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum-security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend Prabaker, the two enter Bombay's hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.

Never Let Me Go

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, comes an unforgettable edge-of-your-seat mystery that is at once heartbreakingly tender and morally courageous about what it means to be human.

The Buried Giant: A Novel

"You've long set your heart against it, Axl, I know. But it's time now to think on it anew. There's a journey we must go on, and no more delay..."The Buried Giant begins as a couple set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen in years. Sometimes savage, often intensely moving, Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel in nearly a decade is about lost memories, love, revenge, and war.

'Murder at the Vicarage' & 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles'

Enjoy the first novels that brought the world two of Agatha Christies’ most enduring detectives: Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. The Murder at the Vicarage is the first Miss Marple mystery, one which tests all her powers of observation and deduction. In The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Captain Arthur Hastings, invalided in the Great War, is recuperating as a guest of John Cavendish at Styles Court, the "country-place" of John's autocratic old aunt, Emily Inglethorpe.

Olive Kitteridge

At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town and in the world at large, but she doesn't always recognize the changes in those around her.

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall

An exploration of love, need, and the ineluctable force of the past, Nocturnes reveals these individuals to us with extraordinary precision and subtlety, and with the arresting psychological and emotional detail that has marked all of Kazuo Ishiguro's acclaimed works of fiction.

Data-Driven Marketing: The 15 Metrics Everyone in Marketing Should Know

We live in budget-cutting times, and marketing budgets are among the first to get cut. Why? When non-marketing executives take a hard look at the numbers, they often can't see a tangible link between marketing and overall revenue. So if you're a marketer today, you're probably facing the need to do more with less, justify all investments, show results, and still beat the competition. The secret to this balancing act is having - and correctly using - the numbers.

Murder on the Orient Express: A Hercule Poirot Mystery

Just after midnight, the famous Orient Express is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift. By morning, the millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. One of his fellow passengers must be the murderer. Isolated by the storm, detective Hercule Poirot must find the killer among a dozen of the dead man's enemies, before the murderer decides to strike again....

Winter Garden: A Novel

Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard: the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father fails ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters

Siddhartha

Siddhartha is Nobel Prize-winning author Hermann Hesse's most famous and influential work, a novel of self-exploration that will linger in your mind and spirit for a lifetime. A young man, blessed with loving parents and a safe home in a world where want and neglect abound, leaves this haven in search of himself.

From Sand and Ash

As children, Eva Rosselli and Angelo Bianco were raised like family but divided by circumstance and religion. As the years go by, the two find themselves falling in love. But the church calls to Angelo and, despite his deep feelings for Eva, he chooses the priesthood. Now, more than a decade later, Angelo is a Catholic priest and Eva is a woman with nowhere to turn. With the Gestapo closing in, Angelo hides Eva within the walls of a convent.

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century

The fourteenth century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering time of crusades and castles, cathedrals and chivalry, and the exquisitely decorated Books of Hours; and on the other, a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague.

The Valley of Amazement

Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese and half-American, Violet grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West - until she is able to merge her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan who excels in the business of seduction and illusion, though she still struggles to understand who she is.

Where We Belong

Fourteen-year-old Angie and her mom are poised at the edge of homelessness...again. The problem is her little sister, Sophie. Sophie has an autism-like disorder and a tendency to shriek. No matter where they live, home never seems to last long. Until they move in with Aunt Vi, across the fence from a huge, black Great Dane who changes everything.

Publisher's Summary

Audie Award Nominee, Literary Fiction, 2013

The Remains of the Day is a profoundly compelling portrait of the perfect English butler and of his fading, insular world in postwar England. At the end of his three decades of service at Darlington Hall, Stevens embarks on a country drive, during which he looks back over his career to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving "a great gentleman". But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness" and graver doubts about his own faith in the man he served.

What made the experience of listening to The Remains of the Day the most enjoyable?

The narrator did a fabulous job of giving Mr. Stephens and all the other characters unique voices. He also had a way of making sure the humor of the novel, which is subtle with subtext, came across exactly as the author undoubtedly intended it to. I thoroughly enjoyed his reading.

What other book might you compare The Remains of the Day to and why?

I don't think I could compare this book with any other. It's quite unique.

Which scene was your favorite?

I can't say I have a favorite scene. The book is complex and tightly interwoven. But I loved Mr. Stephens and felt for him, even as he tried to keep his emotions bottled up.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Remains of the Day ended up in my reading list after being nominated for a 2013 Audie Award. I watched the movie years ago and knew the had won a Booker Award in 1989 when it came out. So after Audible had it on sale I started listening to it.

It is an excellent audiobook. Simon Prebble was a very good choice as narrator.

Mr Stevens has been at Darlington Hall for 35 years. Lord Darlington, his long time employer, passed away 3 years ago and the great house was purchased by an American business man. While the new owner is away, Mr Stevens decides to take a trip to see the former housekeeper.

His travels lead to long sections of reminiscence. The entire book is first person narration. Stevens alternates between occasionally realizing what is going on to being unable to really see what is going on around him. He maintains his ‘dignity’ even to the listener.

Much of the book is about Stevens trying to indirectly see whether the work of his life has had value. Stevens asserts that he has been great because he has served a great man. (Although many others believe that Lord Darlington was actually a fool that was played by Hitler to keep Britain out of the war for as long as possible.)

So I am struck by how different this book would be if Lord Darrington was a great man instead of someone that was out of his depth. Stevens believed that service was more important than his own happiness. And I think many readers that find this book tragic would commend him if he had served Winston Churchill or another Lord that ended up being truly great. So I wonder at the implicit idea that underlies the entire book.

On the other hand this is a great book to illustrate cognitive dissonance (the idea that we come to believe something different from reality in order to make ourselves feel better.) The best book I have read on that is Mistakes Were Made, but Not By Me.

I really did enjoy the book, it was performed excellently. And it really did challenge me to think about what we serve (or who we serve) and how thing outside our power can forever affect the way we perceive ourselves. In the end I think I come to a different conclusion then the book intended. But it is still well worth reading.

Well of course I'm going to give this 5 stars. <br/><br/>Interesting that a novel written in 1988 by a man who wasn't born in England could write one of what I would consider one of the great novels of English literature. A lot of novels I'm sure have attempted to carry on the tradition of this sort of 'novel of manners and society', but this is probably the last, great one we'll ever see. Fitting then that it would be about the ending of things.<br/><br/>For myself, a great novel (or any work of art) is one which gets you thinking about yourself. I tended to think a lot about my own missed opportunities, my age, what lies ahead, and most importantly the feeling of the people around me. I wondered how what I might assume someone I know is thinking or feeling could very well be wrong - that I'm oblivious to a great many things because I can't see past my own nose. <br/><br/>Yet Mr. Stevens never seemed worried about this because he always knew his duty. His duty carried him through all things and so he never once questioned if he might ever be wrong. He's even asked by Mr. Cardinal on the night of the great meeting if he believes what his Lordship is doing is 'right' and he only replies that it's not his place to know. Right and wrong only become a concern to him when dealing with the topic of a butler serving a worthy employer. <br/><br/>Of course, putting aside lords and butlers, Mr. Ishiguro is obviously concerned with larger issues, chiefly the idea of allowing oneself to be led by another who may not be as moral as you would like - which is why Hitler is such a good backdrop since he took full advantage of people's allegiance to the German state. That unquestioning loyalty seems quite dangerous against the Nazi flag, yet here we see it with the good intentions of a naive English gentleman and his loyal butler. And the price both paid were costly, but at least Mr. Stevens got some good advice about always looking forward and so his fate is not as bleak as Darlington's. <br/><br/>Oh well, I could go on and on, and that's what makes this such a wonderful novel. I'm glad I read it so soon after reading Fathers and Sons too - I feel as if I've read some of the greatest novels ever written and they are both stories I am very sad to have to put down.

I am a true fan of Kazuo Ishiguro's novels but had the most difficulty with this one (despite the fact that it is the book that catapulted him to fame). It starts off and moves *SO* slowly that only my stubbornness ensured that I completed it (hence the 4 stars for story). The narrator is wonderful, but this is the first Audiobook I've ever listened to that included *so many* "patches"--places where the narrator's voice suddenly changed and it seemed that a line or two had been added after the fact, as if the master recording were not good enough, or the master had been created from an abridged edition of the book and then beefed up for the release of an unabridged audiobook. This was irritating to me because the change in voice was noticeable enough that it broke my concentration. Had it occurred just a few times over the course of the book I would not have cared, but given that it happened about 50+ times I found it quite annoying and unprofessional (of the recording studio, not the narrator, who was only doing his job).

This book is for the Downton Abbey fans, of which I am one. I have been listening to mysteries so this is a nice change of pace. I really enjoyed the way the story was told through the road trip of Stevens,the main character and the way he looked back on his life. Stevens is unapologetically himself till the bitter end, which ends up being a little heart breaking. He is bound by rules of convention. if only in his own mind. And although it irritated me, the way he stuck to these rules, it ultimately defines who he is and therefore it can be no other way.

I just couldn't get in to this book - I tried 2 times to listen to it thinking it was me. It was the book. The narrator was great, the idea was wonderful, the writing was fine but sooooo boring. I thought maybe something interesting was just around the corner but no, just boring.

I can’t help comparing and contrasting “Remains of the Day” with “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry”. The first is a minor literary masterpiece, the second a jejeune bit of literary fluff that had its faddish moment of popularity and will be unremembered a decade hence. But in what consists the difference?

Is “Remains of the Day” a better novel simply because of Stevens "good accent and command of language"? Or is it gilded by historical perspective: is mid-century past simply more romantic than the current decade; is it inevitable that prose from that era will inherently have more literary “quality” than something written for the internet audience?

The superiority of “Remains of the Day” resides in the profundity of its theme. Ishiguro has hit on a cultural truth: that the characteristics that defined what was quintessentially British, when “British” was still a unique culture, were reified in the personae of the butler from a great house. Not in Rachel Joyce’s (or T.S. Elliot’s) hapless everyman, not in Anthony Trollope’s patrician nobility and clergy, but in that singular cultural habiltator, the butler. Don’t ask me to enumerate these cultural traits: even the butler, James Stevens cannot define them . But he knows what is and is not “British”.

Culture is critically important but impossible to define. Ishiguro may have come as close as anyone has to fixing upon the definition of the culture of Imperial Britain. Thanks, perhaps, to that ever so slight separation between himself and British tradition.